


time doesn't love you anymore but i'm still knocking at your door

by wckdroot



Series: river song and her doctor [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Imprisonment, Mistaken Identity, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Stormcage Containment Facility, inspired by that picture of 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wckdroot/pseuds/wckdroot
Summary: Maybe it was poetic justice that her love's greatest foe had been her somewhat closest friend over the past few years.Every night, the Doctor would whisk her away for a few weeks on adventures, to weddings and birthdays and sometimes with her parents.  But each time, he would return her a few hours after she'd left with a parting kiss that she'd savour as she teleported herself down to the bowels of the asteroid.-------------River finds company with 'The Master' in Stormcage but like most things in her life, things are not what they appear to be.inspired by the several tweets that came after the new 13 promo came out :)
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/River Song, Jack Harkness & River Song, The Fam & Jack Harkness, The Fam & River Song, The Fam & Thirteenth Doctor, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Series: river song and her doctor [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975666
Comments: 11
Kudos: 104





	time doesn't love you anymore but i'm still knocking at your door

  
_It's like keeping up with a hyperactive child after giving them too many sweets. It's quite adorable really. Who would've guessed the Oncoming Storm/the Beast of Trenzalore had never been to a funfair?_

  
River glanced up from her diary the sound of knocking pouring into her otherwise empty cell. 

  
Four knocks that echoed her heartbeats perfectly rang out from beneath her floor.

  
It had been happening for days, in this time stream anyway. Ever since that new mysterious prisoner had been placed there - she had heard the rumours throughout the prison when she sometimes allowed herself to venture into the grubby communal areas.

  
Always four knocks, nothing else. 

  
She had done enough research about the Doctor to know about the Master. Her husband's greatest foe but closest friend. The Time Lord that was broken at the hands of Gallifrey and haunted with that one repeated drumbeat. 

  
The continuous rhythm of four could've been nothing but it could also be everything and her one shot at seeing the infamous enemy of the Doctor's finally. 

  
River placed her diary under her pillow and activated the perception filter to keep it hidden. She quickly opened her cell door - honestly, she thought, they might as well just give her a key. The guards knew her well enough by now to know she would return eventually anyway and going on a quick escape to run around the prison was just her regular Tuesday morning. 

  
She wandered past the collection of empty cells to reach the teleport, forever thankful that they thought she was too dangerous to be around others full time - they acted as if she had killed somebody! 

  
Teleporting to the Governor's office was a quick trip as she skillfully picked the lock, entering to find a collection of papers allocated to the new prisoner scattered across the desk. She rifled through the three hundred pages worth of paper, only to find paragraphs of redacted information and nothing to go on apart from a binary vascular system that showed up on the scan taken on entry and a note to where they were being kept. 

  
Stacking the papers back in their original position, River expertly exited the room and went straight to the floor which held the entrance to the private teleport that could get her down there and to the possible Master. The two guards that stood protecting it made eye contact with her immediately and rolled their eyes.

  
"This area is out of bounds inmate."

  
"Even for me boys?"

  
The elder looking guard stepped forward. She recognised his face from his last duty guarding her cell, River had brought him back a lovely cheese platter and a bottle of 1400-year-old wine from her two week holiday in Barbados 12-4.

  
"I will walk you back to your cell inmate."

  
"Inmate sounds so impersonal, I told you to call me River!" 

  
He rolled his eyes once again and stomped forward encouraging her to start walking.

  
"Oh Pete," River was sure that was his name, "Don't worry your handsome little head about it, I can escort myself back to my cell."

  
"Right then get going."

  
She had made her way to the entrance to the teleport when Pete called her name, causing her to spin around.

  
"Doctor Song, you had a delivery today from a Mr Williams, looked like some antique relics but it got approved. Go and collect it before you go back to your cell, it saves me a job."

  
"Of course, anything to make your life easier Pete. I'm waiting for an order of cowboy outfits you will all look devilishly handsome in."

  
River winked to him before stepping into the teleport. 

  
She never should've taught her parents how to send her mail, her father had a habit of sending her newspapers and books he thought she might like (and be able to sell as relics later on for about 10 million credits). It was sweet, but it did nothing for her super-secret alias when she was getting packages from her parents under their real names from three thousand years in the past.

  
\-------------

  
God, her feet were killing her!

  
The Doctor had decided they would have three weddings in a row which meant a lot of dancing with her very uncoordinated husband - he had stepped on her toes sixteen times-until she had successfully taught him how to dance reasonably well.

  
As she threw her high heels across the room, the sound of the knocking was still present even now a few months later. It was in her plan to get down there as soon as possible but there were other occupying things like heists with Jack, nights with her husband and Pond family dinner every Friday.

  
To be fair, she had been somewhat productive by trying to draw out the floorplan from the last time she had been down there. It used to be where she would train and keep herself sane in the hell hole of Stormcage - the prison had used it as extra storage and her and the governor agreed it was better for her to train down their with dummies rather than with people who would be rather offended if she slit their throat.

  
River looked out onto the stars that surrounded her cage, she must've been coming to her fortieth year there by now at least on their records and the stars never changed. The night was still young by her guess which meant that maybe this was the time to go visit that prisoner.

  
Grabbing her gun, she changed the setting to stun. That way, all she gets is a slap on the wrist when they eventually find out. Barely harming a guard with her wrap sheet was worthy of a gold star.

  
She innocently wandered down to the guarded teleport as she distorted the camera feeds, choosing to leave her vortex manipulator behind. Pete and the other guard that wasn't so friendly stared at her approach, she offered them a smile before grabbing her gun and shooting both of them in the chest. 

  
"Sorry!"

  
River smirked as she swiped Pete's security pass and hopped into the teleport. 

  
Her eyes refocused on her arrival at the empty space before her. The open space was guarded by a thin layer of glass whilst a lone cell shaped like a cube stood in the middle of the room, directly placed under her own. 

  
The walls reached the ceiling, the dim lights barely allowing her to observe the metal. If she had to take a guess, River would've sworn it was zero balance dwarf star alloy - just like the prison Canton had built for the Doctor in 1969. Maybe her madman had taken notes and knew this was the only way to keep the Master imprisoned with River watching guard from above.

  
She swiped the security card once again giving her access to get closer to the parameter of the cell. The knocking from the prisoner inside still vibrated off the ceiling while she approached - to be able to hear it they must've been hitting it with a lot of force, the insulation in the prison for one of its era was bad and but not that bad.

  
"Hello?"

  
Four knocks still as she shouted against the walls.

  
"I'm Doctor River Song."

  
Silence.

  
For the first time in months, the knocks silenced.

  
"You know, your banging is keeping me up at night, how's a girl supposed to get beauty sleep in here with all that racket?" 

  
No voice replied to her question as River investigated the entryway. A large scanner stood next to it, it sized up to be around four times bigger than her hand which sadly didn't narrow down in any way who had imprisoned them.

  
"I know you can hear me, are you not much of a talker - I find that a bit surprising. I was expecting a bit more from you, Ma-"

  
An alarm rang through the empty room, the sound of marching catching up behind it.

  
"Sadly that's my queue to leave. Honestly, you shoot two people and your public enemy number one!"

  
She kicked her gun to the floor - it was a shame really, she had become quite attached to that one.

  
"It's not like I've committed genocide unlike you."

  
River muttered as five guards, three snipers (one for each heart and her head) and four Judoon stormed into view. Interesting, she wondered, there weren't many Judoon prisoners in Stormcage with them usually only using it as a temporary holding facility so maybe it really was the Master inside. The big rhinos must have owed the Doctor a favour somehow or maybe the Doctor contracted them!

  
"Surrender Inmate!"

  
Two sets of hands came forward forcing her down onto her knees into surrender. 

  
"Boys, I thought I told you to dress up next time you brought out the big guns! I even ordered you that maid's outfit Octavian!"

  
\-------------

  
Solitary confinement would be the death of her.

  
Actually scrap that, River knew the Doctor would be the eventual death of her.

  
It must have had something to do with the Master and the Judoon, they had never thrown her in there before. It didn't stop her leaving either - it was amazing what she could hide in her hair!

  
She had finally been returned to her cell after a few weeks and found herself digging through her trunk of artefacts/sometimes murder trophies. River knew she had a spare Judoon gauntlet somewhere, she had won it after winning a game of electric chess - the sadist in her loved that game and it was always fun watching Jack play. 

  
Now she knew the layout of the lower floor, it was perfectly safe for her to use her vortex manipulator to get down, which saved her dragging the gauntlet along with her. 

  
"I'm back!" 

  
She shouted as she lumbered the heavy object along with her and dropped it onto the scanner. Her life would have been a whole lot easier if the entire system wasn't deadlocked and she could just use her sonic trowel.

  
"They thought they'd try solitary confinement, it was rather peaceful and quite successful on my part. I completed four expeditions, became a goddess in fifteen different space colonies and spent some fantastic nights with my husband."

  
The scanner beeped as the wall separated to allow her entry. River stepped through the open door to only be met with another, this time with a rectangular hatch for a window cut into it. It looked as though they had fashioned the actual cell into the asteroid and, was that a genetic lock on the cell?

  
She pulled the hatch open to see an interior submerged in darkness, the light from the hall allowing her to a see a glimpse of white tally marks across the wall. The figure inside rushed out of view to sit against the door, a quick glance at slicked back blonde hair the only visual she could get.

  
"You know from the stories I heard about you, I thought you’d be more talkative."

  
"Who am I?"

  
The voice within croaked out, a struggling laugh following, with a surprising northern English edge to the muttering.

  
"The Master of course."

  
River left the hatch open and sunk to the floor, her hair cushioning the blow as she dropped her head against the door. She heard a heavy sigh come from within along with more broken laughter.

  
"Yeah, yeah 'course that's me."

  
"Having a bit of an identity crisis are you?"

  
"Something like that."

  
The pair were submerged in silence as River prepared. The Doctor and the Master were legends throughout the galaxies, either the hero and villain but that was dependent on the stories that were told to get children to sleep at night. Her bait would have to be good enough for it to be taken and to be trusted.

  
"I'm guessing the Doctor finally caught up to you. I'm quite offended he put you in here and didn't tell me. He probably thinks I am going to find out all his secrets, it's not like I don't already know them."

  
"Oh really?"

  
"Do not go getting any ideas, I'm not going to share them with you. You are his greatest enemy!"

  
"There is a fine line between love and hate."

  
"With you two yes, actually even with me and him too. The Doctor always forgives even when he shouldn't but who are we to tell him how to live his life?"

  
"Do you think he forgave you River?" 

  
Tears pricked her eyes. 

  
Forgiveness was tricky for her. 

  
The Doctor had forgiven her, so he said. 

  
She didn't think Amy and Rory ever had, for being the reason they never got their real baby back. And who was the Doctor to be her sole source of forgiveness?

  
Had she ever truly atoned?

  
"Always and completely forgiven were his words. But you more than any know that words don't mean much to gods."

  
The beeping of her vortex manipulator concealed the Master's reply - the guards were making their rounds, giving her a few seconds to get back to her cell.

  
"That's my warning. It's time for me to go. Master?"

  
The Time Lord gave her no answer.

  
"Master?"

  
"Oh sorry. Not used to that name."

  
"What are you talking about?"

  
"Er, I'm a woman now. They call me Missy."

  
Oh, she thought, that was new.

  
"That's what you get for choosing a gender restrictive title. I think we can help each other out. You tell me about your past and the truths of Gallifrey and I make your life a bit easier in here?"

  
"Can't your husband tell you that?"

  
"The Doctor does as the Doctor pleases."

  
"I will talk, River."

  
"Oh good! I would've hated to have to bring out a few torture methods on the only other surviving Time Lord."

  
\-------------

  
Maybe it was poetic justice that her love's greatest foe had been her somewhat closest friend over the past few years.

  
Every night, the Doctor would whisk her away for a few weeks on adventures, to weddings and birthdays and sometimes with her parents. But each time, he would return her a few hours after she'd left with a parting kiss that she'd savour as she teleported herself down to the bowels of the asteroid.

  
Missy had told her stories upon stories of Gallifrey and the Doctor. She told River about how in reality the Doctor was the one that would get them into trouble and she was quite stuck up. They were the unlikely friends of the Academy but neither of them cared and their friendship continued throughout their first faces. 

  
She had been told about the Doctor's first marriage. How it was arranged and they had both refused to tie their hands together as it was a sign of eternity together and because the Doctor was still waiting for someone who truly mattered.

  
In return, Missy only asked for two things: packets of custard creams and chalk so she could write on the walls. River had tried speaking to the Governor about giving her more privileges, like time just walking outside or even showers that weren't once a week and consisted of being hosed down by ice-cold water, but had ultimately been refused

  
Apparently, she was already being lenient by allowing River down there.

  
Swiftly, she made her way down to the cell. They had started just letting her in a few months after it became a regular thing but she was surprised to find a new face stood beside trusty old Pete.

  
"Hello to you."

  
River offered her hand which the new officer reluctantly took after a nod of confirmation from Pete, who was simultaneously rolling his eyes.

  
"This is Doctor River Song, this is Yasmin. She's working her first shift, so be nice."

  
"First day on the job and they put you here?"

  
"Er, yeah yeah."

  
River stared at the hands that shakily clung to the gun, she really wasn't that intimidating, was she? Yasmin plastered on what seemed to be a fake smile before speaking,

  
"What do you do around here Doctor Song?" 

  
"Oh you know, serve my twelve thousand consecutive life sentences."

  
It was always fun watching their jaws drop.

  
"You didn't mean in general? Oh, I see. I'm here to have a chat with my fellow prisoner if you could just move to the side a bit - vortex manipulating does nothing for my hair."

  
The new guard stood there gobsmacked whilst Pete shuffled to the side allowing her entry, their whispers of a new conversation catching her ears before she transported.

  
"So you just let her down there?"

  
"River Song usually gets what she wants around here considering she's probably going to be stuck in this prison well after we die." 

  
River shook her head as she exited the teleport but was dragged from her own mind by the shouting of her name.

  
"RIVER? RIVER IS IT YOU? RIVER!"

  
The archaeologist quickly ran up to the cell, the Judoon part of the lock now constantly unlocked, and pulled open the hatch to see a pacing Missy inside.

  
"What's going on?!"

  
"They're moving me River, I can't go somewhere else, I won't come back!" 

  
"Calm down, I won't let them. Let me go and talk to th-"

  
"It's not up to them, it's the Division. They are gonna take me and I'm never going to-"

  
River watched as Missy's form curled in on itself, the sound of crying echoing from the chamber as the dismal figure whispered,

  
"You can't leave River, not again. We should be together."

  
She felt sorry for Missy really, she must've formed some sort of attachment to River - what with her being the only voice without true venom she had heard for years.

  
"I'm staying Missy."

\-------------

  
The well-known sound of a body dropping to the floor pulled River from her thoughts. Her and Missy had been sat in silence for what felt like in hours in preparation for the arrival of the so-called 'Division' so the disturbance was easy to note.

  
"Missy, keep quiet. I'm coming back, I promise."

  
River rushed forward yet slowed her approach as she got to the teleport. She went to pull her gun from her thigh holster only to find it empty - her husband's attempt at minimising her violence. Harshly, she cracked her knuckles and stormed forward, chancing one last glance at Missy's cage. 

  
As soon as she arrived, the bleeding form of Pete barely breathing on the floor came into view along with the new guard Yasmin, who had her gun aimed at him. The sounds of two male voices came from behind, blatantly shouting over the noise of guns and lasers.

  
"That was sick Yaz!"

  
"Shut up, Ryan. We need to get her now!"

  
So this was either Missy's rescue parade or 'the Division' that she had feared. With time rapidly running out till she was noticed, River pulled the knife from her boot and used Yaz's temporary distraction to kick the shorter woman in the back and onto the floor. 

  
"Yaz!" 

  
Ryan and the older man with him called as Yaz fell to the floor, her weapon still tight in her grasp.

  
"Here's a tip for you. If you are going to break someone out of prison, don't use your real names - Yaz and Ryan."

  
The woman River had pushed to the floor had used the time of River's warning to establish a firm hold on the gun and aim it straight at her heart - well one of them.

  
"Oh please, like you know how to work that thing properly, your marksmanship is shoddy and you're scared. Never hold a gun if you're scared."

  
River clutched her hand around the hot barrel of the gun and pulled Yaz to her feet by it, then pressed the barrel to her chest. The way Missy had feared the Division gave her hope that the three assailants in front of her had no part of it - she highly doubted they'd hire three human-looking scaredy cats, from what seemed like Sheffield, to incapacitate her. 

  
Maybe she had enough remnants of regeneration energy to survive. 

  
Maybe the Doctor would love her enough to show up right when she needed him. 

  
"As far as escape teams go, you're not what I would've expected for the Ma-"

  
"YAZ, NO!"

  
River looked to see Captain Jack Harkness running towards the group, a thunderstorm of bullets surrounding him. Why did everything in her life have to be a series of unanswered questions and confusing encounters?

  
"Give me the gun!"

  
River hoarsely called. She attempted to tug the gun from Yaz's shaking hands but was met with fierce resistance.

  
"No!"

  
"Give me it now!" "Give it to her!"

  
Jack shouted along with River. Yaz finally released the gun, allowing the assassin to shoot the Judoon perfectly just above the horn and in between the eyes - stupid rhinos, always remember you're helmets.

  
The corridor had fallen into a deafening silence, the three humans staring at River in a sense of disgusted awe and Jack just smirking at her - he was so going to try and sleep with her after.

  
"Get in now!" 

  
River barked her orders as all of them piled into the teleport and ran towards the cell on their arrival.

  
"You saved us time by opening these doors, Doctor Song. Now if you could just do the other ones..."

  
"I'm not going to let Missy out of her cell!"

  
"Missy?... You don't- You think that's the Master?"

  
Jack looked at her with open disbelief whilst River just got even more confused.

  
"River, it's the Doctor."

  
The strange thing is, that was what finally made it make sense. 

  
The Master was an unhinged lunatic who probably would've broken out of there within a day whilst the Doctor - _her Doctor_ would sit there and wallow. 

  
"Jack, your scanner says it is genetically locked, whatever that means?"

  
Yaz called, River and the Captain made eye contact across the group of rescuers. 

  
They both knew what that meant.

  
"Move out of the way."

  
She barged forward, the ever devoted wife, and ignored Jack's calls for her to stop and think.

  
"River, you don't-" "I have to try Jack."

  
"And what if it kills you?"

  
"Then I become another name in the long list of those who died to save the Doctor and I made my peace with that when I married the idiot." 

  
"Hold on, married?"

  
River spun her head around at the joining voices, she had forgotten there were even any other people in the room with her.

  
"Please hush, Mummy needs to save Daddy now" 

  
She pushed her fingertips against the scanner before continuing,

  
"Well, Mummy - that better not be my last words." 

  
The rumble of the door opening elevated her hearts but the sharp sensation shooting up her arm quickly dismissed her temporary happiness. It must've been isolating her human DNA and be showing her as an intruder and it bloody hurt.

  
Jack rushed into the cell along with Yaz and Ryan, the older man that she'd yet to learn the name of stood back keeping his eye on her.

  
"GET OFF ME JACK!'

  
Heaviness filled her eyelids but the shouting of the voice she had become so familiar with pulled her back ever so slightly from the brink. She felt her body falling but the arms of a woman carefully embracing her convulsing figure.

  
"Oi, you promised you wouldn't leave me." 

  
Those eyes, she'd know them anywhere.

  
No matter what face her spouse took, the lost and heavy look in their eye would never cease.

  
This was never the Master.

  
It was the Doctor.

  
Her ~~madman~~ madwoman.

  
\-------------

  
God, it felt like that time she and the Doctor had accidentally taken an anti-insomniac and slept for three months.

  
She heaved her eyes open to see the stars plastered across the ceiling and a deep orange glow swirling around her body that meant she was home. 

  
River looked down to find the dead weight of the Doctor sprawled across her side, her hands clutching at her sides. 

  
"Sweetie?"

  
The Doctor's reddened eyes looked up to meet her own. 

  
"Hiya."

  
River flexed her fingers, luckily her hand seemed to be intact, which was probably thanks to the mass amount of the Doctor's regeneration energy she could feel coursing through her body.

  
"Doctor, why didn't you tell me it was you? I could've saved you from that hellhole years ago." 

  
"No, you couldn't have River."

  
"I would've tried!" 

  
She used her hand to push away the strand of blonde hair that had fallen in front of her wife's eye before reaffirming her point,

  
"We could've gone anywhere. I would have stayed this time, we would have ran. How long has it been since you last saw me?" 

  
"Spoilers." 

  
Fresh tears poured against her collarbone, the Doctor burrowing further into her and away from the world around them.

  
"Why were you in there with a Time Lord lock on your door? What happened?" 

  
"River, I- I don't- I don't even know who I am anymore." 

  
"My love..."

  
The Doctor's body violently shook with sobs, River's tears joining in.

  
She couldn't recall a time where she had ever seen the Doctor truly cry and look so, so broken. Then again, the Doctor had been on her own for all those years, every time River found something more interesting, and she had been stuck - that was the worst punishment of all for the Doctor.

  
River cocooned her body around the Doctor's.

When she found the person who did this, they would pay - whether that was her wife's wish or not.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed it!!!
> 
> if you have any prompts, drop them in the comments and if you are looking to go down the 13/river rabbit hole check out my multi-chapter 'crying lightning' <3
> 
> kudos & comments are always appreciated !! <3
> 
> @timegirlfriends on tumblr  
> @wckdroot on twitter


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